Flexible Private Market Investing at Clearlake

José E. Feliciano is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Clearlake Capital Group. Clearlake manages $75 billion in assets in a flexible strategy across private equity, credit, and special situations in the technology, industrial, and consumer sectors.

Our conversation covers José's background, operational experience, and launch of Clearlake in 2006 to pursue a flexible strategy. We turn to the challenges and drawbacks of Clearlake's flexible investment approach, its investment process, ownership model, and trajectory growing from $3 billion in assets after ten years in business to $75 billion six years later. We close by discussing capital transactions for GPs, continuation funds, current opportunity set, Clearlake's investment in Chelsea Football Club, and permanent capital structures.

Show Notes
4:41 Jose’s Background
7:25 Investment banking to the startup world
9:03 Surviving the dotcom bubble
10:52 Lessons from failure
18:32 Specializing as a generalist
21:15 Broad strategies and raising capital
26:38 Sourcing ideas
28:47 Investment committee dialogue
34:26 Inflection point in growth story
40:55 Working with seed investors
47:17 Continuation funds
51:01 Current market environment
53:31 Investing in Chelsea FC
59:00 Innovations in fund and business structure
1:00:15 Closing Questions